Five-time Olympic Gold medallist, Tour de France winner and ‘hour’ record holder, Britain’s ‘knight rider’ Sir Bradley Wiggins has a reported net worth of £13 million.
How did he become a millionaire?
Born in Ghent, Belgium on April 28, 1980, Bradley Marc ‘Wiggo’ Wiggins relocated with his mum Linda at the age of two to Willesden Green, north-west London (her parents’ place) after his Aussie professional cyclist dad Gary Wiggins left them. Linda then moved with her son to Kilburn and took up a job as a secretary at St Augustine’s Church of England High School, where Wiggins completed his schooling.
With his mum’s encouragement to watch the 1992 Barcelona Olympics cycling events, Wiggins developed the cycling bug. Following his first race, the West London Challenge in 1992, “the kid from Kilburn” bought his first racing cycle from a £1,700 road accident compensation and also joined his dad’s old haunt Archer Road Club.
Wiggins soon took up full-time cycling, winning at the 1997 and 1998 junior national track championships and the Junior Track World Championships (Cuba 1998).
His first senior medal (Silver) at the Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games (1998) brought Wiggins a grant of £32,000 per annum, making him a full-time lottery-funded athlete. More lottery funding saw him ride for the British national team.
In 2002, he joined French bicycle club Française des Jeux and, in 2003, conquered the Six Days of Ghent partnering Matthew Gilmore.
Winning three medals at a single Olympics (Gold, Silver and Bronze), at Athens 2004, made Wiggins the second British athlete to achieve such a feat after athletics star Mary Rand from the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games.
In December 2009, he won the Team of the Year Award as a member of the British cycling team.
The professional teams that Wiggins rode for include T-Mobile Team (2008), Garmin–Slipstream (2009), Team Sky (2010) and his own team WIGGINS (2015).
Related
From 2000 to 2008, Wiggins secured ten medals (six Golds) at the Track World Championships.
Wiggins earned retroactive podium finish in the 2009 edition after third-placed Lance Armstrong’s disqualification in October 2012.
Collaborating with the Fred Perry clothing label in July 2012, Wiggins launched a range called the Bradley Wiggins X Fred Perry Collaboration.
He is also the only one to win the Paris-Nice, Tour de Romandie, Critérium du Dauphiné and the Tour de France in the same season (2012).
Wiggins earned a spot in the Guinness World Records too as the first cyclist to win the Tour de France and an Olympic Gold (2012). Wiggins’ 2012 achievements also clinched him the Vélo d’Or, Sports Journalists’ Association’s Sportsman of the Year, Cyclingnews.com Rider of the Year, International Flandrien of the Year and the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
The most decorated British Olympian with a medal tally of eight (five Golds, one Silver, two Bronzes), Wiggins surpassed Chris Hoy’s seven (six Golds, one Silver).
Other accolades include CBE (2009), GQ’s Lifetime Achievement and the Knighthood (2013).
Content from our partners
Wiggins broke the hour record of Alex Dowsett on June 7, 2015, riding 54.526 km (33.881 miles) at Lee Valley VeloPark.
In 2016, Wiggins and Mark Cavendish conquered the Six Days of Ghent (his final race) before Wiggins retired on December 28.
The keen guitarist and ‘mod’ has authored four books: In Pursuit of Glory (2008), My Time (2012, in collaboration with William Fotheringham, The Guardian’s cycling correspondent), My Story (2012) and My Hour (2015, again collaborating with Fotheringham).
Wiggins will be one of the contestants on Channel 4’s reality TV show The Jump (starting February 5, 2017).
